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What is your experience facing real blades in "t3h street" for real?. How many times?. How did you solved the situation?. How your training methods reflects your personal experience about SD against blade wielding opponents?

I'm asking because I only had 2 encounters with knife wielding assailtants and what I see in the clips doesn't match with my personal experience.

I have never had an encounter with a knife wielding assailant. I have been attacked with a fire poker, and had a struggle over a pistol, that's the limit of my real world weapon encounters.

I am not claiming to be able to train Marines for combat. Nor is it my intention to give the Idea that I'm some kind of underground knife fighting expert. Of coarse the videos look different then a real knife fight, they are done in a dojo with dudes who don't hate each other. Fights and training are very different things, always will be.

A real fight is impossible to completely simulate in a dojo, because A: the two people engaged don't want to actually harm each other. and B: It's happening in a safe controlled atmosphere.

This whole idea is part of the ridiculous fantasy martial artists engage in. Your dojo training is never going to simulate what happens in an unstructured fight. MMA doesn't do it, Dog brothers don't do it and nothing structured ever will.

I can't find my original post. If someone has a copy of it (e.g. email), please post it here again so it can re-set the context for the following videos.

I've got one video segment up. It takes quite a long time to get each video segment up. I believe there will be about six to eight installments, together totaling approximately sixty minutes of video.

I can say this up front - we are not using a knife to train in knife fighting. Rather, we are using the knife as a training tool. Why? Several reasons - here are the main ones: We want to introduce stress (fake and real knives do this for nearly every beginner), we want to tempt the practitioner with focusing on the knife (so we can train them to "see" beyond the knife, to gain an unfettered mind), and holding and using the knife lends itself to slicing or cutting movements, which in turn allows the beginner to be more fluid with his/her motion (i.e. not staccato or jerky).

We try not to violate too many of my own theories regarding knife fighting, which folks can see more of in my experimentations with the 21 foot rule (a video you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeqjlN24Hns), but since our primary goal is a spontaneity that is Aikido in nature and a body/mind that is unfettered by the circumstances and environment it is facing we have little to say, in the end, regarding knife fighting in the videos you are about to see. I ask the viewer to please keep this in mind.

Again, to the point: The point of these videos, and the drills and exercises they demonstrate, is to gain a spontaneity that is Aikido in nature, and to cultivate a body/mind that is unfettered. These exercises/drills are a refinement of what I did, of what Chris is doing now.

Here is the first video segment. Of course, feel free to raise questions, make comments, now, but the viewer might be better suited by watching all the segments first. Either way is fine by me.

David, I realize you're offering these as kind of a dialogue in and of themselves, but six minutes of exposition before ANYTHING happens in the video? Lucas managed to set the stage for the whole Star Wars saga in about 30 seconds...

I should also say, while it's presented like some sort of "film," we just put a camera up during some of the classes we did one week. The viewer should probably picture himself watching a class at any ol' dojo. Sometimes, nothing is going on, etc., sometimes the same thing is going on over and over again.

Again, to the point: The point of these videos, and the drills and exercises they demonstrate, is to gain a spontaneity that is Aikido in nature, and to cultivate a body/mind that is unfettered. These exercises/drills are a refinement of what I did, of what Chris is doing now.

I think this is the crux of the questions. Define the training objective and desired endstate and explain how what you are doing reaches that.

I don't believe it was clear, or I missed it, and many misunderstood it....???

I think what Chris is doing is a good thing. It is something I did too. To be sure, when I went through it, I was a mess. But, let me suggest this: it's going to be a mess because one is pretty much left to discover for himself what needs to be discovered. In short, one is forging his own path. When you do that, there's going to be a lot of hacking and wrong ways and obstacles you can't get over, but you are going to learn a hell of a lot by all of that stuff. That stuff does not make the journey a waste of time.

So, what are you looking for? I won't put words in the Chris' mouth, but, for me, I was looking to for a spontaneity that was Aikido in nature. I was not at all satisfied tactically or theoretically by the usual stuff you see being done "spontaneously" - e.g. MMA, Kick Boxing, etc. Why was I looking for that? Well, besides being the art I chose to adopt as my own, it was an art I felt to be tactically superior for most applications I was prone to face.

When I look at Chris' videos I see someone trying to struggle through the obstacle of bringing one's practice off of the chalkboard of kihon waza and into ever expanding fields of experience and application. When someone is doing that, it won't make much sense to look at things from the point of view of the chalkboard. This is especially true when one is looking at the beginning or experimental stages of development.

I don't know what Chris will do in the end with what he's learning from these experiments, but that's the point of experimenting in my book. What one sees in my video segments is something I did with my own experimentations. I did this because I was interested in getting folks to the same place without having to have them go through path forging. Regardless, the latter is still completely dependent upon the former.

Hi David,
From my understanding, you are doing a mix of aikido and pushing hands exercise. It is well done, but of course has nothing to do with knife work - at least IMO.

I think Kali/escrima guys are pretty good at knife, they have solid, nice methodology. It would be my choice, but as seprate training, not mixing strange stuff to aikido. I don't think also you will develop spontaneous reactions with a knife - it is way too difficult:
1. if you do weapons at amateurish level(let's say to decrease a level of difficulty), it is funny, not Budo.
2. If you do weapons at good level, it is impossible to face it with empty hands.

I'll not comment on Chris video, he is taking it too personaly, so technical disscussion is not possible.

Michael touched on this earlier, but I’d like to talk about it a bit more. The main difference between what you are seeing in the drills I’ve been showing lately and most traditional Aikido is intention.

In a form the intention of both parties is to achieve the desired result of that particular form. So if we are doing Katate dori shihonage, the desired result will end in a shihonage. If we are doing Jiyu waza the result will be uke being thrown. In the practices we are doing the intention of each side is to achieve their own personal goal. The goal of the knifer is to “cut/stab”, the goal of the unarmed fellow is to control the situation by disarming or submitting the knifer.

By changing the intention from a unified goal (uke falling), and moving away from the uke/nage rolls we see a different side of the practice unfold. You shouldn’t look at the results of the drills, it’s not a liner practice. Instead you should look at the honestly of the practice.

When we play the rolls of Uke and nage it requires approximation. You must approximate what would throw you, or how the energy of the situation will move you or how you “should” respond. You must approximate because you are (intentionally or not) working toward the unified goal of the form; for uke to fall.

When you take away the roll of uke/nage we change the intention of the exercise from a unified goal (nage throwing uke), to an individual goal (knifer trying to cut, unarmed trying to control). This takes away the approximation, and makes for a very honest practice.

So when I ask for feed back, I’m not asking you to asses my or my students technical ability. In the videos I make I purposefully leave in much footage of the technical mistakes. This is not because I am not aware of them, it is because I want to show how the pressure of the situation (dropping the uke/nage rolls) changes the interaction. It should be a given that under pressure people are going to make many mistakes. While “A” goal is to make fewer and fewer mistakes, the main purpose of the drills we are doing now is to honestly expose the mistakes we are currently making.

When people critique these details in a non cooperative situation, as shown in our drills, what they are saying to me is “I can do this better under pressure” when what they mean is “I can do this better in a form”. Now if you can do it better under pressure, cool, post a video, showing how you do it and we can have a discussion. I never see video’s from any of you doing anything like this though. I tend to get frustrated hearing these critiques over and over, when it seems you are talking from the idea of the uke/nage roll. If we were doing forms, many of your critiques would be right on the money. When talking about this specific type of practice(no uke/nage rolls), not having a noncooperative practice yourself, your critiques are lacking foundation.

I think there is nothing wrong with forms practice. Ask my students I’m meticulous, I’m always on their case about proper form. Ask those who have come to visit our dojo, I’ve never hear anything but praise over our clarity of form. But the drills I have been showing are a different practice then form. I feel this is an important step in the development of the Aikidoka, and of Aikido itself.

I have been so intrenched by my own work that I have not taken the time to properly explain what I am doing. I often forget that everyone else isn’t working on the same stuff I am, and that perhaps a little explanation on my part might be necessary. I am very sorry for my oversight.

David, I haven't had time to go through all of the vids yet, but what I have seen so far is excellent. Please note though, that it does not resemble what Chris is doing.

Chris, your last post is excellent, it accomplishes a lot in a meeting of the minds. I will try to address some of the points you made shortly...in it's own response, which it deserves.

Szczepan, I think you may be wrong about the Budo part. Yes, there is a strong resemblance to some forms of "push hands" in what David shows, but it also shows "an unfettered mind" developing in David's students, and pretty darn well developed in David. Their ability to move as well as they do is really quite remarkable at their level. It would be interesting to see how well that would hold up under even more pressure.

As for the weapons usage, I kind of agree but kind of don't. Most weapons training in aikido is not about the weapon, it's about moving the body, with the weapon as an extension, or a focal point, or something to up the ante. In that spirit, I think this IS Budo, in that the weapon serves in all these ways. No, it is not kali, or silat, or koryu...but I see the basic principles of using that weapon not being violated in any major ways, unlike the previous vids. Perhaps more thoughts on this later.

Best,
Ron

Last edited by Ron Tisdale : 04-03-2008 at 08:02 AM.

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

When you take away the roll of uke/nage we change the intention of the exercise from a unified goal (nage throwing uke), to an individual goal (knifer trying to cut, unarmed trying to control). This takes away the approximation, and makes for a very honest practice.

I like the way you express that...what is interesting to me, though, is that Shodokan Aikido has much the same stated goals in their Tanto keiko and competition...and yet even that looks remarkably different from what I see in your vids. I'm sure that is the product of more than one thing, especially, rule set. Have you looked at the rules for that practice? Perhaps someone familiar with it can post a link... I also have seen other forms of non-cooperative practice that seem to me at least to be very "honest" in the manner you speak of, and participated in some. Again, not much resemblance...

Quote:

So when I ask for feed back, I'm not asking you to asses my or my students technical ability. In the videos I make I purposefully leave in much footage of the technical mistakes. This is not because I am not aware of them, it is because I want to show how the pressure of the situation (dropping the uke/nage rolls) changes the interaction. It should be a given that under pressure people are going to make many mistakes. While "A" goal is to make fewer and fewer mistakes, the main purpose of the drills we are doing now is to honestly expose the mistakes we are currently making.

I'm not sure I remember the people who commented critisizing the technical ability of your students...I am pretty sure I did not. I guess one question I have after seeing several iterations of your drill is that we keep seeing the exposition of what ever mistakes may or may not be made...but no real change from one vid to another. So we never really see any progression from the exposee to any sort of resolution.

Quote:

When people critique these details in a non cooperative situation, as shown in our drills, what they are saying to me is "I can do this better under pressure" when what they mean is "I can do this better in a form".

I for one, did not say or mean that (I could do it better) in either true non cooperative situations, or in a form. If I had meant that, I would have stated it clearly. So if you got that mistaken impression, I appologize, and ask that we reframe the discussion now that it is clearer. I do know the difference between cooperative vs non cooperative from my days in wrestling.

Quote:

Now if you can do it better under pressure, cool, post a video, showing how you do it and we can have a discussion. I never see video's from any of you doing anything like this though.

I think I already addressed this in one of my posts above. I would add to that that at least one of environments where I did some "non-roled" training was at Ellis Amdur's seminar...and I am not in a position to video tape his seminars.

Quote:

I tend to get frustrated hearing these critiques over and over, when it seems you are talking from the idea of the uke/nage roll. If we were doing forms, many of your critiques would be right on the money. When talking about this specific type of practice(no uke/nage rolls), not having a noncooperative practice yourself, your critiques are lacking foundation.

But you do not know our practice, even less than we know yours...so how can you judge our foundation?

Quote:

I think there is nothing wrong with forms practice. Ask my students I'm meticulous, I'm always on their case about proper form. Ask those who have come to visit our dojo, I've never hear anything but praise over our clarity of form. But the drills I have been showing are a different practice then form. I feel this is an important step in the development of the Aikidoka, and of Aikido itself.

Fair enough...but I'm not sure "form" is the essense of our complaints. It may or may not be for some...but certainly not for me.

Quote:

My appologys for the long post.

No appology needed! and the response is much appreciated. Should I be in a position to video tape some of what I would consider non-cooperative / no role training some time, I will certainly make it available for the discussion.

Best,
Ron

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

Notice that the rules are designed to reinforce the goals of ones Aikido waza rather than allowing it to just turn into judo with a kokeshi. I think this is a big distinction. When a knife enters the encounter, you are now talking about a lethal force scenario. To take away atemi from the defender creates an overly advantageous scenario for the attacker, ignoring damage from the knife further forces the student to explore artificial avenues of resolution. Throw in atemi and have a 5 stab restart guideline and you would have a much more reasonable exercise. This is still not productive in my view.

Notice that the rules are designed to reinforce the goals of ones Aikido waza rather than allowing it to just turn into judo with a kokeshi. I think this is a big distinction. When a knife enters the encounter, you are now talking about a lethal force scenario. To take away atemi from the defender creates an overly advantageous scenario for the attacker, ignoring damage from the knife further forces the student to explore artificial avenues of resolution. Throw in atemi and have a 5 stab restart guideline and you would have a much more reasonable exercise. This is still not productive in my view.

Sorry, that's all for tonight. I'll post the last segment (#9) tomorrow. In segment 9, we put it all together in an intermediate level practice - one that opens the drill up to kicks and shoots, besides strikes of any kind.

I'll write on the posts and the videos come the weekend - when I have time. Sorry. In short, however, the hard part of training beyond kihon waza is not the level of resistance (my opinion). Thus, it is not the absence of cooperation either. How could it be these things?! Aikido is supposed to function in regards to both of these things. Rather, the hard part, even the thing that makes resistance and a lack of cooperation seem difficult to address, is the impermanence and "unknowability" of an attack that occurs outside of kihon waza training. This is why there is only one true solution, in my opinion: to cultivate an unfettered body/mind and to develop a training curriculum that aims toward this.

As I said, I'll post the last segment tomorrow night.

dmv
ps. Please note that the sections that follow the title "Contrasting Examples" (i.e. Segments 5-8) are showing folks making the mistakes listed in the subtitles of the video. They are showing what NOT to do.

My opinion is that the rules of Shodokan tanto randori are somewhat artificial. If I recall correctly, they force the attacker to make a clear thrust, which is not a particularly realistic way to attack with a knife, and also require the defender to respond with certain type of tai-sabaki. Nevertheless, I'd say that what they are doing with tanto randori is much better than what you have posted in your videos.

While I don't think your training is totally worthless, I do think that you would be better served in what you seem to be trying to accomplish by training in an established art with a competitive grappling element, like Shodokan aikido, judo, or even BJJ. I'm all for introducing more resistance training into aikido but there is no need to reinvent the wheel when there's a lot of other arts that have this in various forms. You might find it more useful to seek out people who have extensive experience in a form of resistance training that is close to what you want to do, even if it is not an exact match, than to continue in the direction you are going in these videos.

Yeah, I've seen that clip before, I think I've seen most of the shodokan clips on youtube, I like to watch them.

I spent 2 years training Bjj daily, I like the system a lot, and think it's a very worthwhile practice.

I personally don't think we're reinventing anything. I'm finding new ways to train what already exists. You guys get to see about 3% of what we do, and it's the most experimental, difficult stuff.

It's funny to me that people seem to think we aren't getting anywhere. I can see so much progress in our practice from the time we started. My students are always excited about what we are doing, and seem happy. The are also further along then I was with the same amount of training. I think it's a matter of video editing and not actually getting to see the whole practice.

I spent 2 years training Bjj daily, I like the system a lot, and think it's a very worthwhile practice.

I personally don't think we're reinventing anything. I'm finding new ways to train what already exists. You guys get to see about 3% of what we do, and it's the most experimental, difficult stuff.

It's funny to me that people seem to think we aren't getting anywhere. I can see so much progress in our practice from the time we started. My students are always excited about what we are doing, and seem happy. The are also further along then I was with the same amount of training. I think it's a matter of video editing and not actually getting to see the whole practice.

Well I, for one, do not think and did not suggest that you are not getting anywhere. It's obvious to me that this type of practice has some value. However, I do see several problems in these knife randori videos, and the reason I suggested training in an art with an established full-resistance grappling component is that these are not experimental practices in those systems. They've been doing them for decades and have already worked out many of the kinks and developed training methods that lead to success against full resistance. If you've done BJJ and enjoyed it then maybe you should also look into one of the other arts with more of a stand-up component.

That said, if you think these videos do not properly represent the entirety of your practice then why don't you post videos and descriptions documenting the other elements of your training? I'd be interested in seeing what else you are doing besides this.

... My opinion is that the rules of Shodokan tanto randori are somewhat artificial. If I recall correctly, they force the attacker to make a clear thrust, which is not a particularly realistic way to attack with a knife, and also require the defender to respond with certain type of tai-sabaki.

Not only a clear thrust,
" Tanto must step in and stab with his back straight and his balance stable."
... more rules ...
"... B. Inadequate (ineffective) or invalid stabbing
1. Tanto techniques that do not satisfy the above conditions will not be counted as effective stabs.
2. Tanto techniques will also be regarded as invalid unless the tip of the rubber knife has clearly touched Toshu’s body and Tanto has stabbed with proper foot movement. "
(proper foot movement????)
... more rules ...
"The following actions are prohibited:
1) The use of techniques other than the 17 techniques (Randori no Kata).
2) The use of techniques in a desperate way.
(Desperate way?????)
3) The use of Kaeshiwaza before being grasped.
...
6) If a competitor tries to seize the other competitor’s dogi.
(So no grabbing clothes???? I guess to avoid Judo)
...
9) If Tanto defends himself from Toshu’s attack by means other than Tegatana. However, even when Tanto uses
Tegatana, he must not use it in a dangerous way, such as in the face or on the head, etc.. "
(So no serious defence for the knifer????)

So we can see the rules of Tomiki Tanto competition specifically forbid almost ALL of the activity from Chris' videos.
There can be no comparison of the activities we see since the RULES are chalk and cheese.

Quote:

Chris Hein wrote:

... In the practices we are doing the intention of each side is to achieve their own personal goal. The goal of the knifer is to “cut/stab”, the goal of the unarmed fellow is to control the situation by disarming or submitting the knifer.

Suddenly Chris' vids start to look more realistic if the alternative is so incredibly rule-bound.